Obit and rip

The author did handle the fact that there were like four different Mary Byrnes well, but I did not agree with the lingo "rip" on page 70, three paragraphs down: "for the youngster who had a rip at home."

I could guess what this meant, but I had no idea. I feel the author may have not known either and instead of asked one of the people s/he interviewed, s/he just dropped it in there and used it as lingo for the "everyday person." (By the way, what does "obit" mean? Where I just talked about the coment says "for a feautre obit on..."